Querida Tía Sachi,

Las primeras fotos que tengo de ti son cuando Jay cumplió 21 años.

Es increíble pensar cómo tú entraste a la familia, con un corazón tan grande, siempre listo para ayudar y apoyar en lo que se necesité. Nunca te escuche quejarte de nada; nunca te vi con flojera para hacer un trabajo; sea lo que sea, agarrar la escalar para que Papi cambié un foco, o cargarle a Juniper o Kimbal para darles leche, tu diste con todo du corazón a la familia.

Tu y おじいちゃん han sido un buen equipo. Te agradesco mucho por acompañar a mi Papi. En donde sea, apartamentos, casas, cuartos, Uds. fueron un equipo fuerte y siempre nos recibían con amor.

Y la forma mas grande que tu compartías tu amor era con la comida.

Tu comida era maravilloso: tonkatsu, bistek a lo pobre, sopas, seco, lomo saltado, pescado sudado — como voy a extrañar tu comida Tía.

Mira la alegría que tuviste cuando te contamos que Kim estaba esperando bebé. Esa emoción y amor es mas que una tía.

Y así fue que el próximo capitula de tu vida empezó.

Me acuerdo mucho que al principio, Juniper no te hacía mucho caso. Aunque la llevabas caminando en el stroller y la leías libros, Juniper no era muy cariñosa contigo.

Pero en Enero de 2019, hubo un fuego en el apartamento. Y quien fue la primera persona que inmediato vino a San Francisco con nosotros?

Bien preparada veniste y la llevaste a Juniper a un nuevo parque y al museo para que sienta que todo estaba bien.

Y poco a poco, tu y Juniper se juntaron muchísimo.

Caminando con Juniper y Kim para Valentine's Day

En Septiembre 2019, nació la Kimbaluchi’s, y otra vez te veniste para ayudar y cuidarnos.

Y después, en 2020, el año más difícil por COVID, aunque muchos viejitos tenían miedo de viajar, tú te subiste al avión, con tu máscara y desinfectante de manos, y otra vez fuiste nuestro ángel guardián.

Y tía, antes pensaba que el valor de una persona se medía por cuánto dinero ganan o cuántas propiedades poseen, pero tú le has enseñado a mi familia y a mí algo tan valioso y especial, que verdaderamente, la medida de una persona proviene de lo que han dado a aquellos que aman.

Thanksgiving juntos

Navidad juntos

Nunca en mi vida he conocido a alguien tan altruista, tan generoso, tan dispuesto a ponerse en la línea para ayudar a la familia.

Por eso eres más que una tía. Es un honor darte el título de おばあちゃん. Eres una おばあちゃん para mí, para Kim, para Jay, para Juniper y para Kimbal.

おばあちゃん Sachi, estarás por siempre en nuestros corazones. Te amo y que descanses en paz. Dios bendiga tu alma y espero abrazarte una vez más en el cielo.

Tu nieto,

Jun Loayza

What if each of us had a personal assistant?

Well, that sounds great, but we can’t just build an assistant for EVERYONE. Startups don’t work like that — instead of a generic solution for everyone, we aimed to build a specific solution for a specific person.

Content Creators are flooded with messages

We’ve worked closely with Content Creators in the past and we kept hearing the same challenge over and over again:

My inbox is blowing up with messages from fans, collaborators, podcasters, brands. There’s just too much to manage.

Sure, a Creator can hire an Agent to manage brand deals, but that still leaves the tons of messages from other people.

So we decided to tackle this challenge: what would an AI Assistant look like for a Content Creator flooded with inbound messages from people vying for attention?

The AI Assistant would screens messages

Before a person reached the Creator, they would need to be fully vetted: who are they? What do they want? What’s in it for the Creator?

The AI Assistant would prioritize the inbox

The Creator needs to instantly know: what needs my attention right now?

The AI Assistant would politely reject messages

For those people that do not merit the attention of the Creator, the AI Assistant would politely reject them, thanking them for their time and message while leaving the door open to talk again in the future.

And so we built it (well, the MVP version of it).

HitMeUp.ai — the AI Assistant for Content Creators flooded with messages from fans, followers, and brands

I’m excited to announce the launch of the MVP of HitMeUp.ai. Check it out by hitting me up here: https://hitmeup.ai/jun.

How it works

All new messages start in your Hits Inbox. From the Hits Inbox, you can Accept or Ignore & archive a chat.

If you Accept a chat, then you start the conversation and the chat is moved to your VIP Inbox.

If you Ignore & archive a chat, then it is arhived and removed from your Hits Inbox.

If you want to get someone’s attention, then you can send them a Giftaccino (a virtual gift).

Sending a Giftaccino gets your message to the TOP of the person’s VIP Inbox.

The recipient has 48 hours to claim their Giftaccino. If they don’t claim it within 48 hours, then the value of the Giftaccino is refunded to you.

Note: recipients of the Giftaccino keep 100% of the proceeds.

Meet the team

Hit us up at anytime:

• CEO: https://hitmeup.ai/jun
• Experience: https://hitmeup.ai/yukai
• Engineering: https://hitmeup.ai/leo, https://hitmeup.ai/luchomolina,
• Design: https://hitmeup.ai/jchi

And here are just some of the Creators using the product:

• https://hitmeup.ai/haven
• https://hitmeup.ai/natalia_amayaa
• https://hitmeup.ai/limmy
• https://hitmeup.ai/tina

Introducing HitMeUp.ai was originally published in HitMeUp.ai on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Your kids don’t want to watch TV — they want to work!

On Sunday morning, my family got together at my mom’s house to eat brunch. My dad and brother brought steaks, my mom made some scrambled eggs and waffles, and my wife made her famous roasted potatoes and avocado toast. Each family member planned to contribute to the brunch.

My kids on the other hand were goofing off in the living room while the prep work for cooking was taking place.

My 5yo approached me, “Papi, can I watch silly Muppet Babies?”

“Hah!” I laughed. “Now is not the time for TV. Now is the time to make brunch! Look how everyone is contributing to the family brunch. Grab your sister and let’s get to work.”

Eagerly, the 5yo grabbed the 3yo and came to the prep table. I assigned them the following tasks:

T = Togetherness!

In Michaeleen Doucleff’s book, Hunt, Gather, Parent, she creates the TEAM framework. The “T” in TEAM stands for “Together”.

As parents, we often feel that we need to encourage our children to do things alone or independently. For example, when they need to clean up their toys in the living room, we tell them to go do it by themselves.

If they don’t do it, then we threaten to throw their toys away. We do this as a way for them to learn responsibility.

But kids need encouragement as opposed to punishment. Kids learn by our example; if we’re there with them cleaning up their toys, then they feel like they’re a part of a team. By doing it together, we teach our children to clean up not through fear and threats, but by leading by example and showing them that we expect them to contribute to the family.

Set the right expectations

When we teach our children through threats, then the expectation is “do this or else!” Let me ask you, what happens if you’re not there to enforce the rules?

If your child is home by themselves, will they clean up if you’re not there to tell them what to do and to enforce the punishment?

Instead, if you’ve taught your child that we all have our place and responsibilities in the household, then your child cleans up not because they’re afraid of the punishment, but because it’s the right thing to do to contribute to the family.

It’s not our job to entertain our children

Our job is to teach our children.

When you’re doing a family activity, make sure to involve them. Yes, I know that involving them in making eggs or waffles makes things messy and the food won’t come out perfect, but the experience for them is so valuable.

In the GRACE Framework, by involving your kids in your family activities, you’re giving them Responsibility and building their Confidence.

And of course, kids do deserve the simple pleasures in life. Here are my 5yo and 3yo sitting together, enjoying the eggs that they made and Muppet Babies.

This article was written by Jun Loayza, creator of the Dad Smarter Not Harder podcast. Jun and Yu-kai work together on Metablox and Octalysis Prime.

This post was originally published on Yu-kai Chou’s blog.

Your kids don’t want to watch TV — they want to work! was originally published in 10,000 Hours of Play on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You give your younger child some strawberries.

“I want strawberries too!” shouts the older child.

You give your older child some strawberries.

“Her strawberries are bigger than mine!” screams the older child.

This dynamic between siblings can be incredibly frustrating. In my conversation with Michaeleen, author of Hunt, Gather, Parent, she admits that the topic of siblings can be a whole other book of its own. It’s funny because Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish expressed a similar statement in their book Siblings Without Rivalry (which is an amazing book as well).

So how can we get siblings to cooperate instead of compete?

It all start with Responsibility.

If a child is acting out, don’t punish, give them more responsibilities

I forgot which book emphasized the above statement, but it’s so true. When a child is acting out, the best cure is to give them more responsibilities.

This works wonders in our own household. Whenever our 5-year-old is acting out, then we ask her to help us with the household chores.

Whenever our 3 year-old is acting out, we ask her to help fold some towels.

Giving them responsibility grounds them — it makes them feel that they are positively contributing to the family. It makes them understand that their role is not just to be a child, but that they are expected to do their part as well.

Ultimately, Responsibility leads to maturity.

“You’re such a big girl.”

The greatest compliment that I have ever given my 5-year-old is, “wow, you’re such a big girl.” She just absolutely beamed when I told her that.

Little kids want to be like the grown ups, which is why you can utilize this innate drive to teach them Responsibility.

Think about it. When your child was a toddler, they wanted to follow you around and do everything that you’re doing. If you were folding laundry, they wanted to fold laundry with you; if you were cooking, they wanted to cook with you as well.

And honestly, it makes your work twice, maybe three times as hard. You fold something, they unfold it. You tell them to add a dash of salt, then smash the salt with their hand. But this drive to help is a great opportunity to instill Responsibility in your children.

You are your siblings caretaker

The best way to get your siblings to stop fighting is to teach them that they’re each others caretakers. Some examples:

1. When you’re changing the baby’s diaper, ask your older child to get you the diaper.
2. When your younger child is getting a snack, remind them to get one for their older sibling.
3. When you need to step out of the room, ask your older child to watch over the younger sibling.
4. When the younger child is crying, ask your older child to come and calm the baby together.

There are so many opportunities to instill collaboration instead of competition.

When the child helps the sibling, respond with, “Wow, what a big girl [or boy].”

Emphasize that they’re being mature. It’s what they crave.

What to do when there is sibling friction

Let’s say your older child doesn’t want to share their snack with the younger sibling. You can respond with:

• Awww... poor thing. Look how sad the little sibling is.
• If you were your little sibling and your older sibling didn’t give you a snack, how would you feel?
• Oh, I get it. You’re not sharing because you’re a baby.

All of these phrases teaches the sibling Empathy.

If you were to punish the child for not sharing, they would not learn Empathy. They would learn that life is unfair, that their parents always favor their younger sibling. And if they start to develop this spite for the younger sibling, then they’ll develop a sibling rivalry.

This is why it’s important to teach collaboration instead of competition.

After some thought, I’m expanding the GrACE framework to GRACE in order to include Responsibility:

• Growth Mindset: The base from which everything grows and develops. Children need to believe that they can get better through practice.
• Responsibility: The basis to teach maturity. The daily practice and routine that solves tantrums, sibling rivalries, and sets them up for success.
• Autonomy: A child that is given responsibilities will learn Autonomy. They will learn to do things on their own at the right time. They will learn to set the table without being asked, to do the dishes without being asked.
• Confidence: A child that can act independently, without the need to be told what to do is learning self confidence. They’re learning that they are smart, they are capable, and that their contributions matter.
• Empathy: A child that is self confident, that truly loves themselves, can then master Empathy. One cannot love another unless they love themselves first.

This article was written by Jun Loayza, creator of the Dad Smarter Not Harder podcast. Jun and Yu-kai work together on Metablox and Octalysis Prime.

This article was originally published on Yu-kai Chou’s blog.

How to get siblings to stop fighting by emphasizing maturity was originally published in 10,000 Hours of Play on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It was 7:30am. I was getting breakfast ready and the 5-year-old was sitting on the couch reading a book.

Suddenly she plopped down on the couch and exclaimed, “I’m bored.”

First and foremost, it’s ok for kids to feel boredom. Actually, it’s beneficial. But often times parents see this as a requirement of their attention. A parent will drop everything that they’re doing in order to entertain the kid, or likely, just turn on the television and let YouTube entertain them. I know I’ve been guilty of this.

But let’s flip the script. Instead of seeing boredom as something bad, let’s see it as an opportunity for something good.

In this case, I was getting breakfast ready, so I let the 5-year-old know, “if you’d like, you can help me make the smoothie.”

Examine how I carefully worded my statement, “if you’d like.” It’s not a demand — it’s an invitation.

A demand won’t work in this instance: Do our demands really work on children? Do our threats actually get our children to willingly and happily comply? If I want my child to brush her teeth, should I threaten her to do it right now “or else”, or should I let her know that her toothbrush is hungry and it wants to eat the germs on her teeth?

Because I didn’t word it as a demand, the 5-year-old eventually sat up and waddled over to the kitchen island.

She’s made the smoothies with me in the past, so immediately knew where to start: spinach, carrots, beats all go in the blender. She saw me cutting the cucumber and asked, “Can I cut the cucumber?”

Surprised, I say, “of course!”

I proceed to give a thorough demonstration:

1. Hold the knife like this with 1 finger here to give extra pressure
2. Your other hand should hold the cucumber like this with your nails protecting your fingers in case the knife slips
3. Move the cutting board closer to you so that you have a better angle to cut

After that, she was on her own cutting away.

Autonomy leads to Confidence

In the GrACE Framework, each skill/trait to master leads into the next one:

• Growth: The growth mindset is the base for all traits and skills to grow from. A child must know that they’re not stuck or doomed; rather, their job is to learn and grow through practice.
• Autonomy: An autonomous child is different from an independent child. An independent child can play by themselves. An autonomous child can set the table when needed, can help with the breakfast every morning.
• Confidence: Autonomy leads to confidence, self confidence. A confident child does not seek attention or validation from others; a confident child won’t grow up desperately needing the social media validation of likes from others.
• Empathy: Once a child is self confident in their own skin, then they can master empathy. An empathetic child is open minded, can understand how others feel, can let their guard down, and can make the world a better place.

In this example of teaching the 5-year-old to cut the cucumbers using a sharp knife, she not only practiced Autonomy, but gained Confidence. She was given a sharp knife, something just for adults. She understood that I took the moment to teach her, but then gave her the space to work on it by herself, without hovering over her to make sure that she didn’t cut herself.

This is key: Don’t hover. Teach and walk away. If you hover, it communicates that you believe she’s not ready for the responsibility, and you’ll be reducing her self confidence.

This article was written by Jun Loayza, creator of Dad Smarter Not Harder. Yu-kai and Jun work together on Octalysis Prime and Metablox.

This post was originally posted on Yu-kai Chou’s blog.

How to use a knife to teach kids Autonomy and Confidence was originally published in 10,000 Hours of Play on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Inspired by Michaeleen Doucleff’s book, Hunt, Gather, Parent, and the show Old Enough on Netflix, I decided to teach my 5-year-old how to scoot to grandma’s house independently.

I would never do this in SF

My wife and I lived in San Francisco for 13 years, 5 of them with kids. I’ve dreamed about teaching my kids autonomy by letting them walk to school more independently, but it never felt safe because of the homelessness and general crime in SF.

Our school was only a 10-minute walk from our home. I truly believe that if she had to, our 5 year old could have made the walk.

To practice, I would bike the girls to school, park at the street corner, and encourage them to walk to the school gates by themselves. It was slow going.

At first they didn’t want to. After a few days they walked a few steps. Then a week later they made it halfway. All the while, I made sure to let them know, “Practice makes better. You’ll make it further little-by-little each day. Don’t feel rushed. Take your time and you’ll get there.

Important: Kids mature at different paces. It’s more productive to encourage and let them know that they’ll do it when they’re ready as opposed to forcing kids to do something. In this example, if I had forced them to walk to the gate, they would have resisted harder and probably developed a fear of walking independently.

For many reason, my kids never made it by themselves to the gate.

But we soon moved to the suburbs and my chance to teach autonomy through independent walking was reborn.

A parent’s worst fear

In Julie Lythcott-Haims’ book How to Raise an Adult, the opening pages describe a scene that is a parent’s worst nightmare. A mother left her child alone in the mall in order to do some shopping. The child was abducted and killed.

How can I encourage my 5 year old to venture out on their own?

I know for sure that my dad would think I’m crazy and disagree with my actions. This is the scrutiny that Lenore Skenazy received when she was labeled the world’s worst mom for letting her then 9-year-old ride the train in New York by himself.

Do the benefits really outweigh the risks?

It’s really all in the details. Each child is different; each city or suburb is different. Personally, I don’t know when is the right time or where is the best place to do it. San Francisco was not the right place, but a neighborhood suburb only 2 small blocks away feels right to me.

Julie Lythcott-Haims wrote about many statistics that show a child is much safer today then in the past and the chances of abduction are incredibly low, but it’s absolutely a non-zero chance.

How I’m approaching the lesson

On a Monday evening, I showed my 5-year-old a video from Old Enough that shows a 3-year-old Japanese kid crossing the street all by himself and buying groceries.

The next morning I asked my 5-year-old, “Are you ready to scoot to grandma’s house independently like the little boy you saw on the TV?”

“Yes Papi!” she said excitedly.

“Ok. Take it slow and easy. Watch out for cars in the street and backing out of the driveway. If you need anything, just yell for help.”

“Ok Papi.”

And off she went.

I was nervous.

All these crazy thoughts ran through my head. After about 1 minute I left the house to make sure she made it to grandma’s safely.

Walking along the street, I couldn’t see her in the distance. Had she been kidnapped? Did she get lost? Did I send her off on her own too soon?

As I rounded the street to the cul de sac, I saw my 5-year-old beaming with pride in front of Max the dog. She ran to me and exclaimed, “Papi, I got here all by myself! And I was careful about the cars.”

Yea, it’s worth it.

I don’t know the exact age, maturity, or location that will work for your child, but it’s worth it.

This article is part of Jun Loayza’s parenting series, Dad Smarter, Not Harder. Jun developed the GrACE framework for raising children. A = Autonomy.

This post was originally published on Yu-kai Chou’s blog.

I let my daughter scoot to grandma’s house all alone was originally published in 10,000 Hours of Play on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Monday, June 20th

I arrived to New York on Monday, June 20th, ready to take on the conference. I took the red eye in from San Francisco, still a bit tired, but pumped to join the team.

Joseph Graves
Thinking the conference started on Monday, I arrived late morning Sunday. My son had driven up from Virginia the day before with his girlfriend to visit a couple Philadelphia museums, so they picked me up at Newark Airport and drove me into the city.

As a west coast native, a first time visit to New York City is beyond comprehension until you see it.

Yu-kai Chou
I flew in from Taiwan, which was a 23 hour travel and beginning at 6AM in the morning — I basically didn’t sleep. I flew from Taiwan to SF to New York, and for the first time ever I felt it was putting a strain on my body. Not sure if it’s because I am getting older, or because I wasn’t sleeping on the plane either but watched some movies.

But gotta do it for the company!

I walked into the Airbnb and asked, “So what’s the plan today? When does the conference start?”

Dara Salas
I too, thought the conference started Monday and chose to arrive Sunday morning. Waiting for the team to show up, I decided to eat lunch at the restaurant at the end of our block. I ate french toast and hung out with the bartenders and staff. At 3:00 I left for our AirBnB next door. Turns out Google gave me directions to the wrong block and the actual block was actually a good mile or two away.

Yu-kai, Joe, and Dara all give a chuckle, “The conference doesn’t start until tomorrow.”

Hahaha, we all arrived too early.

But we were not deterred. I whipped out my phone and found the nearest 4-star brunch place. Onward we walked to POST.

Breakfast at POST was bomb. We came back regularly to get our daily fuel. We also met Myke, the restaurant co-owner. He told us the story about how he and his brother started POST. Dude had awesome hair.

Joseph Graves
POST was incredible and served as our daily anchor amid the rest of the conference chaos. Explaining Metablox to Myke amid our morning meal, it felt good to have that familiarity among the daily novelty of the trip.

Dara Salas
I truly enjoyed my pork and fried egg biscuit sandwich I had at POST. The biscuit was soft and flakey and the pork was moist and tender with just a hint of spice. But the fried egg on top really elevated the sandwich. Does egg yolk have umami because somehow a runny egg always makes everything freaking BOMB. if you go you must try it and make sure the Metablox team sent you.

Yu-kai had a meeting across town, so we hopped in a tiny Uber (for some reason Yu-kai ordered an Uber that fit 3 people when we were 4) and made some new friends.

Joseph Graves
Yu-kai’s network has become a common point of interaction for the team — best selling authors, fashion influencers, Exponential Strategists, and a whole lot more are regular characters on our journey.

The size of the car was just the appetizer for that journey — it was followed by aggressive driving for the main course and finished up with a dessert of bad attitude.

Yu-kai Chou
I had no idea that you could order different seats for Uber. I just ordered UberX and that was the option. I know there was another one where you can order a large van but I didn’t think we needed that.

Dara Salas
Getting the chance to meet some of Yu-Kai’s network was very inspiring. I loved that so much of the conversation was geared towards solving real world issues and making communities much better places. I left motivated to dive deeper into the work of one of the attendees and purchased his audiobook later that night.

During our meeting, we explored how to build meaningful communities and what a local coalition can accomplish. It was great brainstorming ways to make Metablox even more meaningful through a local presence in each city.

The AKINGS event was across town, which gave us time to do a good’ol fashioned walk and talk. We easily walked 2 miles, deep in discussion about Metablox, the mission, and how we can place a heavier emphasis and importance on memories.

I hope we didn’t scare off Joe and Dara. Yu-kai and my arguments can get pretty intense, but at the end of the day, we never take it personally. We welcome these engagements as it helps us build a better company.

Joseph Graves
I was the opposite of being scared away — to see, at times instigate, and occasionally participate 😂, was thrilling. Too many teams shy away from the types of impassioned — candid conversation you two carry on effortlessly — and all without strife or malice.

Dara Salas
Watching you two go back and forth was way too much fun. I secretly wondered how you both managed to not get hit by any cars as you two were so impassioned that it seemed you had blinders on to what was happening around you. Both of you were worthy adversaries in the great debate and luckily no one was hurt in the process. 😂

Yu-kai Chou
Jun and I have lived together, started companies together, succeeded together, failed together, double dated together in the past 17 years, and we have never had a real fight where we help a grudge against each other. But we argue ferociously all day long. Pretty cool eh?

Jun Loayza
Yu-kai and I have this running joke that although we look nothing alike, people still seem to confuse us. It happened again this time in New York. Yu-kai and I switched badges, and this guy that Yu-kai personally knows goes, “Hey Jun!” (because Yu-kai was wearing my badge).

Meeting the AKINGS folks was fun — they even helped Yu-kai with his fashion.

Best of all, Samantha caught up with us.

The good people at AKINGS recommended us to hang out at Skylark. We spent the rest of the day sharing stories, bonding over how amazing New York City is and what Blox we want to Mint.

Joseph Graves
This was my first skyline level view of the city and it didn’t disappoint. From our perch at Skylark we had an unobstructed view of the Empire State Building along with panoramic views of the rest of the city.

Dara Salas
The NY skyline is always something to behold. I always wonder about the light colors on the skyscraper buildings and how the heck they manage to make it happen so effortlessly. Turns out there is an app for that and Samantha’s husband had access to change its colors via the app. How cool would that be as a gender reveal? “Look honey its a girl” and all the skyscrapers in the city turn pink.

Our UX designer also met up with us. The New York Metablox team was complete!

Samantha took us to Bleeker Street Pizza to satisfy our late-night hunger. Pizza was bomb. I got the bacon chicken.

Joseph Graves
Twas the perfect conclusion to our Monday tour. An epic pizza spot with walls covered in notable humans who’d also crossed its threshold in search of that Mozzarella & Marinara induced bliss.

Dara Salas
This was really a great night getting to know each other. As for the pizza, it was very good for New York-style pizza. But it still doesn’t beat the cheesy layers and flaky butteriness of a Chicago-style deep dish.

We closed out the day with an evening stroll. Samantha took us to see a few more places, ending the night with my favorite picture from the entire trip — the Metablox team together, outside the Friend’s apartment.

Tuesday, June 21st

Ok, now it’s time to take on New York NFT week! We were pumped; we were ready; nothing was going to stop us.

We hopped on an Uber and headed straight for Radio City Music Hall. This time I called the Uber, so we had plenty of room to sit.

We got there hungry. So the first thing we did is got some food from street vendors. Joe, Yu-kai, and Dara did it right — they went for the hot dogs.

Joseph Graves
One of my “things to do” in New York was to eat an authentic hot dog from a cart. I thought I had the real deal with this meal, but it wasn’t until later that I realized these carts were part of some chain!

I chickened out and got a some chicken rice.

Do we really have to pay for conferences?

We got to Radio City Music Hall, ready to listen to some talks. We tried to walk in, but they immediately rejected us, sending us off to the New York Marriott Marquis to get our passes.

And it dawned on us — we never got a confirmation email for our passes.

As part of our partnership with Polygon, Yu-kai got a speaking opportunity and 3 passes to the conference. But, we never received an email confirmation with our passes.

We got to the Marquis, full of hopeful positivity.

As Yu-kai and I always say, “Confidence is everything minus 1”. We were confident that if we explained the situation, we’d somehow get our conference passes.

When we got to the badge station, they asked for our QR code. None of us had one, so they sent us to another long line for people that need special help.

While in line, a conference helper pulled us out of line and asked us if we didn’t have our QR codes.

We said yes.

He took us to a laptop and asked us for our names. No proof of purchase or speaker registration was necessary. I got a General Admission pass, Joe was a Media Member, and Yu-kai got a Speaker pass.

Yu-kai Chou
I think Joe was production staff. But it’s pretty ridiculous they just gave me a VIP Speaker Badge without checking anything. He just asked, “So you want a Speaker Badge? Here it is.”

Unlike the Miami NFT Conference, I felt that the New York Conference was not only completely spread apart (I believe there were 5 venues in total across Manhattan), but disorganized and cumbersome.

Case in point: We tried to go to a speaker event back at Radio City Hall, only to be rejected because we had to RSVP for the speaker event.

Overall, New York was a blast, but the conference was no where near as useful as all of the events we attended to connect with other entrepreneurs and crypto people.

Joseph Graves
Agreed. Proximity to smart folks doing amazing things — and for assembling that combination, NFT NYC was successful, but in terms of value from the actual event — it was dubious.

We met up with Onibaku from the Metablox Neighborhood.

With the new addition to the team, we decided it was time to eat and embark on a new adventure.

Yu-kai worked with Polygon to develop a Scavenger Hunt game for the NFT conference. As part of the Scavenger Hunt, if people took and uploaded memories in specific locations, they would earn bonus points in the Polygon Studios Hub Hunt.

We visited one of those locations and saw Steve Aoki, just chilling and enjoying the art at Arcadia Earth.

I was awe struck. Not specifically because of his music, but because of his documentary:

Watch I'll Sleep When I'm Dead | Netflix Official Site

Asian dude growing up in Orange County, trying to get validation from his father. It just hit home to me. His crazy work ethic is what stood out to me the most — anything is possible through hard work.

It was his documentary that sparked the idea to write a children’s book. Here was the first draft that I wrote and my friend illustrated:

The first draft of Steve Aoki and the Dim Mak

We took a picture with Steve; I shook his hand and told him how he inspired my drive to write a children’s book. I feel foolish now for not taking the chance to show him the draft of the children’s book.

Joseph Graves
This is a great memory Jun — it’s just now, reading his influence on you, that I recall reading about Steve Aoki’s past — in particular the relationship with his father.

To see you genuinely express his influence and inspiration on your book was beautiful…I just recognized him from other projects!

Dara Salas
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet Steve Aoki as I was deep in conversation with two other attendees about their NFT projects, one on modernizing Muslim religious architecture in the metaverse and the other attendee’s project sought to help orphaned children in her native Philippines. I enjoyed our conversations immensely but it would have been cool to have met Steve Aoki too.

Joe, Dara, and Yu-kai got themselves some Kumite NFTs, so we visited their event at Mr. Purple in New York. The event was packed — rightfully so as Kumite was able to sell out their Mint during this crypto Winter.

Joseph Graves
Gareb and Scott (the founders of the company behind Kumite) are machines. Successful in web 2.0 — they, like you and Yu-kai are examples of effective business operators making the transition to Web3 for what it makes possible rather than the hype.

Dara Salas
I was totally geeked for this event and ended up reserving this blox in Metablox to hatch my grand battle plan to curate the memories of the Kumite battles and lore as they take place in the various IRL locations. The rest of my plan is top secret. So you’ll have to check it out to see how I level up my character in the Kumite Universe while also level up my blox in the Metablox Metaverse.

We met quite a few interesting people, including an entrepreneur from Japan wearing a tiger costumer for his NFT: Very Long Animals.

We finished the day eating Korean Corn Dogs for dinner. This was on Joe’s to-do list, so we had to do it.

Joseph Graves
It’s true…looking back — I think I need a healthier list.

Dara Salas
Joseph thinks he needs a healthier list, but at least his hot dog wasn’t stuffed with cheese and covered in mustard aioli, potatoes and cinnamon sugar. And if you’re wondering, the first bite was delicious. But after the next few, I felt completely gross and had to toss the other half. NOT RECOMMENDED.

Not the healthiest choice, but damn delicious.

Wednesday, June 22nd

Did you know that New York has the best tap water in the entire country?

Joseph Graves
Most people don’t realize it’s piped in from the Catskills!

You could say that this became our inside joke among the team — with each of us taking deadpan attempts and recounting our new found (initially incredulous) information throughout the trip.

In case anyone wants to learn for themselves:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_water_supply_system

Dara Salas
Glad I was vindicated by the servers who confirmed what I was saying all along. More fun FACTS: the water supply contract in NYC was first given to what would become Chase Manhattan Bank. Apparently, they weren’t so interested in water and poured most of their resources into building the bank side of the business. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/dep/water/history-of-new-york-citys-drinking-water.page

If you didn’t, well now you know. And it’s something that we were reminded of everyday while we were in New York.

In fact, we tested this with many New Yorkers that we met. I asked them, “Can you drink tap water here?”

“Oh yes!” the responded. “In fact, it’s the best water in the country.”

Before heading to an NFT event, we stopped by the Butcher’s Daughter for some healthy food.

Our good friend Brian Wong, Co-founder of Webacy, invited us to their event at a cafe. I highly recommend you check out their project to protect your crypto assets.

Yu-kai Chou
I became pretty sold with Webacy and plan to use it at one point in my life.

Our friend and Yu-kai’s mentor, Ray Wu, invited us to his CEO Happy Hour in New York. It was a great meetup of crypto startups aiming to change the world.

Dinner with the team was great. Miss Korea BBQ was some of the best BBQ I’ve had in quite a long time.

And Yu-kai was gracious enough to wait and let the meat cook so that everyone can eat before munching it all down.

We ended the night dividing and conquering. Samantha and Dara went out to a crypto lawyers meetup. Yu-kai, Joe, Onibaku, our UX designer, and myself went to the Turf event.

To be honest, I think the Turf event was the highlight of the week for me. Met some awesome people that I hope to stay in touch with and do Twitter Spaces together.

Joseph Graves
Attending the EightBit meetup was the only thing we had as a firmly scheduled event — other than Yu-kai’s talk. For me it was a journey that started way back in 2010 with my first EightBit avatar.

Heading into Ray’s (https://metablox.co/blox/new-york/2783) that night I wasn’t sure what to expect, but as we descended the dark steps into the basement — I knew it was exactly what it needed to be.

Dimly lit, people were scattered about the not quite large enough space straining to converse over the music. It wasn’t long before I recognized a voice from the Twitter Spaces — it was Courtney, one of the co-founders. I made a brief introduction and found my way back to the team huddled in the corner.

Over the next hour I incrementally turned the volume down one small turn at a time to make conversations less challenging. Eventually I located Addison — EightBit’s CEO and basketball aficionado.

Throughout the course of the night — many conversations were had, in addition to the founder of Turf, I also chatted with Chris — the creator of Nyan Cats.

Most surprising was spotting a Drippies shirt in the crowd allowing me to meet a fellow owner in that community as well. It’s amazing the people you can meet at events like NFT NYC.

It was awesome making memories with you team! Let’s continue building something amazing and valuable for the world.

The Metablox team takes on New York! was originally published in Metablox on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We made a mistake.

Internally with our team and outwardly to our Neighbors on Discord, we’ve been communicating our focus on longterm value.

This value is derived in two ways:

1. True scarcity because our Blox represent real world places
2. Meaningful memories that happened at that location

Over the longterm, Blox become valuable as they become more scarce (like real estate in real life), and become valuable through the rich history of memories that are curated at that location.

But on our platform, we were communicating something else:

When you see the screenshot above, you may get the feeling that Metablox is not popular, that it doesn’t have hype, and that it won’t sell out.

With our neighbors we communicated longterm value, but on our platform we communicated hype-driven value, like most PFP NFTs.

How we’re going to fix this

Remove “Total Blox Availability”

First and foremost, we’re going to remove the “Total Blox Availability” section on the platform. The percentage of a city owned is not important; rather, the Memories rooted in a city do matter.

Focus on Memories

Secondly, we will continue to focus on the product and expanding Memory functionality:

1. Memories can be added by anyone
2. Memory Marks can be tagged to Memories
3. Memories can be added to anywhere in the world
4. Arweave integration to add Memories to the blockchain

Pause new cities until 1–3 (from above) launch

The next city we’ll launch is New York during NY NFT at the end of June.

After the launch of New York, we’re going to pause new city launches until features 1–3 (from the “Focus on Memories” section) are completed.

Once #3 is complete, we’ll use Memories as a signal for which cities to launch next — the more meaningful memories a city has, the likelier that we’ll launch it next.

We’re built to thrive

We’ve built an amazing team, have 2 years or runway, and have a Neighborhood of people that believe in the mission.

We’re well positioned to thrive during this crypto Winter and come out on top when the next bull run begins.

Let’s do this!

A focus on longterm value was originally published in Metablox on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi Neighbors!

This is an important post. It’s about how Minting will work if you’re on the Waitlist for a Blox.

Check out this screenshot from the Waitlist confirmation email

See the section:

# of people in front of you on the waitlist:

It communicates that the Waitlist will be sequential; however, that is NOT how it will work at launch.

How the Waitlist will work at launch

Here is how launch will work:

1. During the first 48 hours after launch, Reservation holders will get the opportunity to Mint their reserved Blox.
2. Once those 48 hours are over, the Reserved Blox will open up to ALL Waitlist holders. You read that right — it will open to ALL Waitlist holders.
3. Waitlist holders get 24 hours to Mint the Blox.
4. After those 24 hours, the Blox is released for public Minting.

What this means for you if you’re on a Waitlist

This means that the Waitlist is not sequential — it doesn’t matter where you are in the line; all Waitlist holders will get a chance to Mint at the same time.

At what time?

The Waitlist opens at 6am PST/9am EST on Wednesday, May 25th.

If you have any questions, please contact us via the following:

• Discord
• Twitter

How Waitlist Minting works was originally published in Metablox on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi Neighbors!

Many of you have received a gifted Blox as an award for accomplishing objectives during our Whitelists.

This blog post details how to Mint an awarded Blox.

IMPORTANT: You must Mint your awarded Blox. If you do not Mint within the 48 hour Reservation Phase, then you will LOSE the awarded Blox and it will be available for public Mint.

How to find your awarded Blox

To find your awarded Blox, sign in to Metablox and go to the Account Profile page.

If the Blox was awarded to you, then it will read “Giveaway award”.

How to Mint your awarded Blox

1. Click on “Find my Blox” and click on “Mint Multiple Blox”

2. Select which Blox you want to Mint

Note: In the screenshot below I don’t have any awarded Blox. If you do, you’ll see the price is $0 for the awarded Blox.

3. Select Debit Card or MetaMask

4. For Debit Card, if you’re Minting ONLY the awarded Blox, then you’ll be charged $0.50 for the gas fee

5. For MATIC through MetaMask, remember to change the recommended gas fee to high

Reminder to bridge your ETH to MATIC on Polygon chain:

Get ready to Mint: Bridge ETH to MATIC

If you have any questions, please contact us via the following:

• Discord
• Twitter

How to Mint an awarded Blox was originally published in Metablox on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.